Trans geographies, embodiment and experience

Abstract

Queer geographers have long been interested in the interconnections between sexuality and space. With queer theorizing as its hallmark, queer geographical research has made substantial contributions to our understandings of genders, sexualities and embodiment and their constitution in, and production of, space and place. This article examines how trans scholarship intersects with several themes central to queer geographical research – subjectivity/performativity; experience/embodiment; and the historical, political and social constitution of what are now called ‘traditional’ LGBTQ or ‘queer’ urban spaces – and offers geographers interested in intersections between sexuality, gender and the body, alternative and challenging avenues of inquiry. This scholarship highlights, in part, the discontinuities and silences embedded in so-called LGBTQ and queer communities and spaces and points to the need to explore more particularly historical and political conceptualizations of the formations of subjectivities, identities and forms of embodiment in play in these spaces.

Hace mucho tiempo que las y los geógrafo/as queer han estado interesado/as en las interconexiones entre sexualidad y espacio. Con la teorización queer como su sello distintivo, la investigación geográfica queer ha hecho sustanciales contribuciones a nuestras formas de entender los géneros, las sexualidades y la corporización y sus constituciones en una producción de espacio y lugar. Este artículo examina cómo la investigación académica trans se intersecta con varios temas centrales a la investigación del trabajo de la geografía queer – subjetividad/interpretatividad; experiencia/corporización, y la constitución histórica, política y social de lo que ahora se llaman espacios urbanos ‘tradicionales’ LGBTQ o ‘queer’ – y ofrece a los geógrafos y geógrafas interesado/as en intersecciones entre sexualidad, género y el cuerpo, caminos alternativos y provocativos de investigación. Esta investigación académica trans resalta, en parte, las discontinuidades y los silencios encerrados en las así llamadas comunidades y espacios LGBTQ o queer y señala la necesidad de explorar una conceptualización más particularmente histórica y política de las formaciones de subjetividades, identidades y formas de corporización en juego en estos espacios.

Keywords:

• gay
• lesbian
• queer theory
• trans
• queer geographies
• sexuality
• gender

Keywords:

• gay
• lesbiana
• teoría queer
• trans
• geografías queer
• sexualidad
• género

Acknowledgements

This article is based on a paper given at the American Association of Geographers Annual General Meeting, in San Francisco, April 2007 and is funded in part through a grant from the Faculty of Social Sciences Dean's Fund for Research, Brock University, St. Catharines, ON, Canada. Many thanks to Kath Browne and Sally Hines for their thoughtful and engaging comments and to the two anonymous reviews and Robyn Longhurst for their careful assessment and suggestions.

Notes

1. I use the term ‘transfolk’ as an umbrella term for an admittedly diverse and not necessarily commensurate series of gender variant subject positions encompassed by myriad terms (e.g. transgendered, transsexual, FtM, MtF, gender variant, bois, cross-dressers, drag kings, drag queens trykes; trannyfag, boychik). In this article, I adhere to the terminologies used by the participants who generously took the time to speak with me. I use the term ‘transsexual’ for those persons who so identify and who desire complete physical transformation from female to male or male to female through medical and surgical intervention. I use the term FtM (trans men) or MtF (trans women) to refer to those individuals who so identify and who may have various surgical and medical interventions and may live primary as ‘men’ and ‘women’ while refusing the total disappearance of a ‘trans’ identity. I use the term ‘transgendered’ or ‘trans’ for those individuals who so identify or where the term makes sense given the nature of the discussion.

2. ‘Trans’ scholarship is an umbrella term for a sweeping range of research and writing on, by and about transfolk. This article is not intended as a thoroughgoing review of that body of work and draws on a selective set of writings that offer points of interesting engagements for feminist and queer geographers among others.

3. While bi-sexuality and heterosexuality have been the focus of geographical research on sexuality and space, it is largely eclipsed in volume by work on gays and lesbians (but see, for example, Hemmings 2002; Hubbard 2000).